The Wachowskis' ground-breaking blockbuster The Matrix celebrated its 15th anniversary recently, and for this landmark we couldn't help but cast our mind back to the year of its release 1999.

Call it pre-Millennium anxiety or the finality of a clock ticking over from 99 to 00, but there was something in Hollywood's creative waters that year. American Beauty took home the Best Picture Academy Award the following year, but beyond that there were a slew of incredible films that hit theatres in 1999.

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And not just in one particular genre: we saw great works in the blockbuster arena (the aforementioned Matrix), horror (The Sixth Sense), comedy (American Pie) and animation (Toy Story 2). This was a time when great directors - David Fincher, Alexander Payne, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, David O Russell - were all hitting their stride and producing incredible work.

Was 1999 the best ever year for movies? Digital Spy takes a look at 25 films below that made the turn of the Millennium a game-changer for Hollywood.